10-Minute Tile UFO top finished

the first version

One package in one of my UFO bins was some blue gradient fabric and some gold gradient fabric, accompanied by "Ten-Minute Tile" quilt by H.D. Designs.   I had made this quilt previously in September 2014 and liked it so much, I bought other gradient fabric to make another for me. 

While I bought the pattern from the designer, at a quilt show, a number of retail places offer it.  Just do a Google search for "Ten-Minute Tile pattern" and you'll come up with a number of hits to choose from.







 




Well, since that time, the additional fabric has been sitting ... ageing, so to speak ... until now.  Now it was time to get it stitched up.  :-)

The title of the pattern doesn't lie; it really does only take 10 minutes to sew one block together.  But you need a lot of blocks to make the quilt. :-)

For the gradient fabric of this version, I used Timeless Treasures' Blue Bird Metallic Ombre and Northcott's Artisan Spirits Falling Leaves.  They both start as dark at the selvages and blend to light in the center.

This kind of gradient is required for this specific arrangement.  If you use other gradient/ombre fabrics, you'll get a slightly different look.

second version

This top is approximately queen-sized and that's the reason why the picture isn't too terrific.   I don't have the proper space or room in the house to adequately photograph a quilt larger than a twin size ... I can't back far enough away to get the whole quilt in nor can I hang the top up far enough to prevent it from pooling on the floor!  I'm sure you'll get the general idea anyway.

For this version, I decided to machine embroider some designs on the center and half diamonds, just for variety.  I used BFC-Creations' "11th Anniversary Set" for the center diamonds and a design from SewForum (no longer available) for the half-diamonds.   All the embroideries stitched out just beautifully and I'm very pleased with them.

Here are 4 of the 11 different designs I used.  

For these embroideries, I used Glide thread (the same that I use for longarm quilting) and the stitch-outs were beautiful.  I'm very pleased with them.

This finished top goes onto pile of Tops to be Quilted, which is an entirely different project. :-)   For now, I'm very, very happy to have completed a UFO crossed off my list and made room in that UFO bin.

Project catch-up OR what I've been doing lately

Although I've been exceedingly lazy about blogging, I *have* been busy otherwise.   I've been steadily working on decreasing the number of projects in my UFO bins (sadly, after I re-organized and consolidated the contents of my sewing room, I have 5, count 'em 5!, UFO bins.  Very sad.)

In no particular order, here are the UFO projects that I've completed so far in 2016:

* Friendship Braid, using half-hexies.  This scrappy quilt was given to a local child care organization that I like to support, the Bay Area Crisis Nursery.   This is a standard "friendship braid" but uses half-hexies instead of noodles.  The result, although very similar to the noodle-based braid, is subtly different.  By using half-hexies, you get a slanted angle where the segments meet (and during construction, there is less waste when you trim the outer edges).  I was very pleased to be able to make this quilt using scraps on hand.  I used the pantograph, "Chantilly Lace" to quilt it.











*Two fund raiser quilts.  Both quilts are about 44"x 60" and I was very pleased to be able to make both of these quilts using scraps on hand.  These quilts will be used for the annual fundraiser for the Santa Cruz Toddler Care Center.

I blogged about one of them (the pyramids) previously but now, it has been quilted and bound. This has been quilted using the "Flirtacious" pantograph.

The other quilt is also constructed using half-hexies but in a completely different arrangement.     This was quilted using the pantograph, "Chantilly Lace".

* Labyrinth.  This was a workshop given by the guild I was a member of in 2013.  The pattern is "Labyrinth" by Calico Carriage Quilt Designs.   

I only partially finished the top during the workshop.  Back home, I was probably working on some other project, so I tucked Labyrinth away for a later time.  Well ... 3 years later, it's time to get it finished! 

I used some lengthwise printed fabric as the borders.  Although the border palette isn't quite the same as the colors used in the interior, I think it works well together.  AND the UFO is finished.  But not quilted - that comes later. :-)

* Lipari.  Lipari is the name of the Oakshott fabric collection I used to make this crib-sized quilt, although it's never going to grace any crib, if I have any say about it!  I saw the quilt at a vendor at the 2012 PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival), here on the West Coast.  It was made from a pattern in the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of "Quiltmania", a European quilt magazine. 

I bought a packet of fat eighths, a background fabric, an extra fat eighth of a royal blue and the magazine to make the quilt.  The vendor didn't have the magazine on hand but mailed it to me.  When all the supplies arrived, I bundled them up and put them away, since I was probably working on another project at the time. 

Finally, in 2016, I hauled it out because I knew it wouldn't take very long to complete.  Essentially, it is squares with circles appliqued on them, the squares are then sewn into columns and then surrounded by a border.  However, the fabric that I bought was NOT what the pattern called for.  By reading .. and re-reading VERY CAREFULLY .. I was able to PRECISELY cut out what was needed .. except for the little circles around the border.  The fat eighths simply would not allow for cutting the circles of the size called for; I had to make my circles just a bit smaller.

Furthermore, the vendor sold me EXACTLY the amount of black fabric for the sashing and borders.  I mean EXACTLY.  I had *threads* left over when all had been cut.  Which means I have NO black Oakshott fabric for the binding.   I tell you, I was pretty irked.  I'm going to need to buy more and it's not going to be the same dye lot, obviously.  I can only hope that it's not horridly mis-matched.

Furthermore, I was not particularly happy about the way the pattern was written.  It very well could be that I am simply used to the way American patterns are written, but this one was just off-center somehow.  The most glaring item was how the borders were constructed.  First, the pattern calls for mitered borders.  Honestly, since the borders are plain fabric, there's no NEED for mitered borders; butted borders would have sufficed.  However, I wasn't thinking very clearly and proceeded to do the mitered corners.  For me, it's no big deal; I enjoy mitered corners in borders.  BUT ..... *these* instructions have you CUT THE MITER on all four border pieces before sewing them together.  OH MY GOODNESS .. if that isn't a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is.  One SLIGHT mis-cut or mis-measurement and you can kiss those mitered borders goodbye.   I did NOT construct the mitered borders that way; I used the technique that I thought was in standard useage.  Although I didn't use this particular tutorial, it *is* representative of how I normally sew a mitered border.  And in my humble opinion, a much better technique than the one presented by the pattern.

It's not quilted in this picture but I plan to load it onto my Tin Lizzie as the next quilting project to be worked on.



The following projects didn't come from the UFO bin but are new projects that managed to completely distract me.

* Happy camper wall hanging.   The Pirate family has recently acquired a new-to-us (but vintage in real age) small (15') travel trailer.  I'm amazed at how everything inside is so well thought-out.  The previous owners took relatively good care of it and there was little damage inside.  Mr. Pirate wants to keep the vintage look but I just couldn't stand not putting SOMETHING of mine inside!  (No, I am NOT going to re-sew the curtains nor re-do the cushion upholstery.  They are in very good condition and I just don't see a need to replace them.)

What I did find at a local quilt show was a 4 panel strip, printed pictures of vintage trailers!  Perfect!  I cut the panels apart and re-connected them with English paper pieced hexagons and teeny-tiny triangles.   Coordinating strips finished the sides.  I did minimal quilting:  a lot of free motion outlining, SITD and spirals in the hexies.

It now hangs on the bathroom door .. the only long vertical spot in the entire trailer.

* Ladybugs and Kisses quilt.  This is a quilt for a neighbor's 18 month little girl.  It's a commercial pattern, "Ladybug and Kisses".    It is an absolutely, terminally adorable applique quilt.  In looking at my notes and pictures, I can't BELIEVE that I didn't take a picture of the quilted, finished item!  Truly .. I'm astonished. 

All that I have is a picture of the unquilted top.  Wow .. what an oversight.

* a self-mitering baby blanket.  For the same little neighbor toddler, this was made with white flannel on the interior and a flannel Winnie-the-Pooh print for the back/borders.  This is such a quick and easy item to make, it's difficult to stop at only one.  :-)











and that's what I've been occupied with since the beginning of the year!  :-)

A 21 year old UFO bites the dust. (Finally!)

"Quilt of Borders"

Way back in June 1995, I took a 3 week class at one of my local quilt stores.  It was an intriguing class .. a Quilt of Borders.  The concept was a sampler of pieced border blocks, set into an attractive layout.  I"m thinking that this was before rotary cutters came out (or were in wide use) because the pattern included hand-drawn templates by the instructor, Patty Barney, which we traced onto and cut out of template plastic, then used to trace onto the fabric and cut the fabric out.

I used strictly stash fabric for this class project and I remember being exceedingly pleased with myself with how nicely everything was turning out.  The pattern was in 3 sections: a diagonal center stripe with a large triangular section on either side (an upper triangle and a lower triangle).  Each of the 3 sections was made up of several different pieced border blocks.

One triangle section was comprised of Snail's Trail, Card Trick and "shading".  The Snail's Trail and Card Trick blocks are probably familiar to most quilters.  The "shading" blocks aren't a pattern, per se, but was an exercise in getting the right shades of color so that the total effect looks 3D.  To get *this* particular effect, I used the *wrong* side of the blue polka dot fabric as the light fabric and the "right" side of the fabric as the dark fabric.  You're buying both sides of a fabric, so if the "wrong" side is more appropriate to be used, then use it!

The other triangle was made up of a Braid, Pyramids and "points".  The Braid used straight segments (rather than half hexies), the Pyramids was another exercise in using light and dark fabric to achieve a 3D look and the "points" portion was  .. well .. I really have no idea.  The notes say that this pattern was "computer generated" and contained "strange angles" !!!   LOL!  Yeah, I guess the instructor was just having fun at that point. :-)

The center strip was made up of 3 sections ... Chain Links,  "stars", and 9-patch blocks. 

The last class was when we finally were to assemble the 3 sections together ... sewing the upper and lower triangles to the center diagonal.  I pinned each section to each other, centering them and working outwards to the edges. 

THAT'S where I ran into problems.   Each corner of the diagonal center section was *short*.  AARRGGHH.  I was about one inch shorter than it needed to be.  It could have been the hand-drawn master template pattern.  It could have been my tracing of the template.  It could have been inaccurate cutting .. or sewing ... or pressing.  Or a combination of any of them.  I don't know.  All that was obvious was that all 3 of my sections were NOT going to match up at the outer corners.

That made me very, very, very discouraged.  I didn't know how to fix it.  The correct solution would have been to remake the offending blocks .. but I'm sure that I didn't have a whole lot of excess scrap fabric.  So, I just folded it up and put it away.

Occasionally, I'd "rediscover" it when I reorganized my sewing room, but I'd just fold it away again.  Until now.

I have a UFO board and over the years, I've been trying, very diligently, to work on the projects on the board.  There were times when I was on fire .. boy, those project got finished .... and other times when they were just uninspiring.  Couple that with being distracted by NEW!  SHINEY! projects I'd see in magazines or online ... or family quilts that needed to be made NOW ... and that UFO board never quite seemed to get smaller.

Let's fast-forward to now ...  I was at a prime point in time to work on the UFO board again.  I chose the Quilt of Borders because I *knew* just how close it was to being finished .. if only I could think of a solution.   It being 21 years later (yes, I'm very, very good at procrastination), I have a different point of view than when I first started.  Now, I'm more lenient about "creative solutions".  Now, I'm more flexible if the quilt doesn't turn out EXACTLY as it was to have supposed to have been.  Part of that is having all those intervening years of *having* a good number of excellent quilts being completed.  I no longer feel compelled to make sure that every quilt is a masterpiece.  That isn't to say that I do sloppy work, but if the solution to a problem is less than a show quality quilt, then I'm really OK with it.

And that is exactly the solution I came up with for this problem.  I needed to have extra fabric at the outer corners of the center diagonal strip.  If I didn't have extra fabric 21 years ago, I sure wasn't going to have any now (although I did look through my stash inventory, to no avail). 









What I did find, however, was a similarly hued fabric to the background fabric.  I "filled in" the shortfall with strips of the new fabric.  Yes, if you look at it, you can certainly tell. (the green arrows are a hint!)  No, I don't think it looks terribly obvious.  Go back to the picture of the whole quilt at the top of the page ... if you didn't already know those strips were at the corners, are they really THAT obvious??
 
In fact, after it's laundered, from the back of a galloping horse, from a distance of 5 miles, in a stiff breeze, it'll look just fine. :-)

Dress Me Up! - the outer borders

My progress on Dress Me Up! has been stalled.  The interior of the quilt .. the part that assembled all the embroidered dress blocks with the sashing ... has been completed for a while.

I had picked out an outer border from Electric Quilt's library but I really wasn't thrilled with it.  Honestly, I wasn't feeling the love.  So, I just let the sewn-together dress blocks hang for a while, as I cogitated on the situation.

Unfortunately, the Light Bulb Moment wasn't happening.

Eventually, I took the bull by the horns, pulled out all of my resource books on borders (which numbered about 5 or 6) and started *really* looking through them.  Surely, there would be SOMETHING there that would work nicely with the dress blocks!

To refresh your memory, the original pattern calls for this quilt to be finished as just the dress blocks being sewn together.  This results in a small quilt .. a personal sized throw ... or a good sized wall-hanging.  Well, I really do prefer to make bed-sized quilts, so I wanted to add some interesting border(s) to the dress blocks to make it at least a twin sized quilt.   Hence, my need for a very wide border.  Specifically, about 12" of outer borders!

And, doggone it!   Didn't I just find something that I liked and would work out nicely!  The border is "Woven Dogtooth" from the book "Foundation Borders" by Jane Hall and Dixie Haywood.  [That link is for the book listed on Amazon, but if you do a Google search, you'll find many other sites offering the book also.]  This is one of my very favorite books for pieced borders; I've used several from this book and I've never been disappointed.

I used Electric Quilt to help with the design process and, in the case of this border specifically, it was invaluable.  To help provide a visual space between the embroidered blocks and the woven dogtooth blocks, I had a 3" plain border.  The measurements of the resultant sides, top & bottom were oddball; of course they were.  They certainly wouldn't have been anything tidy, you know???

I needed to have the woven dogtooth blocks fit the length of this 3" plain border *exactly*.  Electric Quilt let me audition various number of blocks along the sides and it seemed to me that 14 woven dogtooth blocks along each side looked to be a nice arrangement.  There wasn't anything sacrosanct about 14 blocks ... they just looked nice.  If I had put more blocks in the border, the triangles would have been skinnier; if I had used fewer blocks, the triangles would have been wider ... so 14 seemed to be the appropriate number.

Unfortunately, dividing the length of the side by 14 yielded an entirely obnoxious number ... those woven dogtooth blocks needed to be 5.285" wide.   Good grief!!!  Who can figure out a block with *that* unreasonable width???  Well, Electric Quilt can!  All I needed to do was have Electric Quilt print out the woven dogtooth block at 5.285" wide by 5" long ... and voila! .. there was my template for paper piecing!

Ah yes ... I had decided that paper piecing would be the easiest way to faithfully reproduce that block *accurately* every time.  Furthermore, standard paper piecing makes you stitch through the paper template and then remove the perforated paper after stitching .... a step that I just HATE HATE HATE! ... I view it as a waste of time and a huge mess!   However, I have learned an alternative method ... Freezer Paper Piecing.  This method creates a template that is rather like a Post-It note, because you do NOT stitch through the freezer paper, which means you can remove the template *intact* and *reuse* it for as long as the freezer paper remains "sticky".  The link above will take you to my tutorial on this handy technique.

Off I went, making my 14 woven dogtooth blocks, desperately hoping that when I sewed all of them together, they WOULD, in fact, match the length of the 3" plain border.  If not, I was going to need to fudge some of them.  Holding my breath, I stitched the blocks together, pressed the seams open and spritzed the entire column with Magic Sizing to provide some body.

I marked the center of the plain fabric border and the center of the pieced woven dogtooth blocks ... matched them up .... smoothed out the rest of the border to the ends of the top ... and .. and .. and ... OH MY GOSH!  It matched!  Hooray, hooray, hooray!  :-)  Gosh, I love Electric Quilt!  I know there is *no way* I could have ever drawn the pieced block accurately myself.  :-)

The above picture shows just the first 6 pieced woven dogtooth blocks with the outer plain fabric border pinned to it .. just so I could get the full effect.  With all four sides surrounded by the woven dogtooth blocks and the plain fabric borders, it's going to look wonderful. :-)

The next few days are going to be devoted to sewing up the remainder of the woven dogtooth blocks, so it's going to be my nose to the grindstone for a while. :-)

Organizing Scraps

You do realize that you pay JUST AS MUCH (as in yardage) for your scraps as for the yardage they came from?  Kinda puts a new perspective on all the scraps you generate as you are creating your main project, doesn't it?

At the side of my sewing machine, I have 3 receptacles.

The main box is for "scraps" ... almost anything that is even vaguely useful for future use, whatever that use might be.  I just toss the scrap into the box.  At a later date, when the box is overflowing :-)  , I will sort all the different fabrics.

Small pieces, i.e. "crumbs", are something that I would have normally thrown away.  BUT, my quilting buddy, Sharon, creates "fabric" from crumbs by sewing them all together willy-nilly.  As long as there's a seam allowance with some fabric left over, she'll use it!  So, now, I save all those much smaller pieces as "Crumbs for Sharon"!  The crumb bag is behind the scrap box.

The last receptacle is the garbage/trash bag.  That's for everything else.

So, when the scrap box is completely overflowing and threatens to over take my sewing room, I sort through everything.  The first pass is strictly by the main color.  I'll confess that I do have problems when it's a multi-color print or stripe .. what IS the main color?  Sometimes I don't have an answer.

Once I have my color piles, I dumped them into a Sterlite, 3-drawer small tower.  Now, I do have more than 3 color families of scraps, but the 3-drawer tower is what I had.  (I try to use what I have on hand first, just to minimize the cost.)  So, I put 2 colors into each drawer.

This worked for a while, but as I continued to work on new projects, generate more scraps and sort the scraps into their color families, these poor little drawers rapidly became overcrowded.

It got to the point where I really couldn't stuff anything else into those drawers and even opening them was difficult.

At this point, it really was time for a new system.

As I usually do when pondering a new solution, I think about what is NOT working with the current setup and what (ideally) I'd like the new system to be like.  For scraps, I'd truly like to have one drawer/cubby/box for each color family and obviously bigger than the drawers I currently have.

I remembered seeing a shelf/cubby unit that had 6 spaces (to put fabric drawers in or to leave empty), which would work ideally for my scrap fabric storage system.  Target had such a unit; it's knock-down so you need to assemble it at home.  And the manufacturer also had lots of fabric cubbies to coordinate with the shelving unit.

But when I got to my Target, they were all out of the 6-space unit.  AAARRGGGHH!!!  I just HATE being thwarted!  Well, Mr. Pirate simply declared to "get the 9-space unit, it's only marginally more expensive."    SOLD.  :-)

As for the fabric cubbies to put into the spaces, I was immensely gratified to be able to find cubbies in the colors that I needed!  I was quite prepared to buy neutral cubbies and recover them with appropriate fabric, but since the colors were already available, I didn't need to do that extra step.  :-)

Back on the home front, I assembled the shelving unit (about 45-60 minutes .. very easy), put all the cubbies into the spaces and promptly filled them with appropriate colored scraps.  WOWSERS!  It looks so clean and tidy! 

Over the years, I've been collecting various organizational items .. boxes and totes, etc ... and I was able to dig out 3 fabric trays and one fabric box, which I put on top of the shelving unit.  I haven't put anything into them yet, but it won't be long until I discover what needs to go in them. :-)

So ... here is my "Before" picture:  the scrap tower is on the lower left.   Stacked on top of the tower is a pile of green fabric that was given to me and a blue tote of needlework supplies.  To the right side are two BIG boxes of more donation fabric and more needlework supplies. 

The needlework supplies don't really belong in my *sewing* room, but the room where I've been (temporarily ... for a few years) storing my needlework supplies really doesn't have any extra space either.  So, there these items have been sitting for a while.

But, circumstances have changed; that room now *does* have space in it, so off the needlework supplies have gone to their new home.

The two big boxes of donation fabric have been shuffled off to another room.  I'm not thrilled to do that because I tend to be "out of sight/out of mind" but until I get some of my UFOs finished, I won't have the space in my sewing room to house those two boxes.

That left this entire wall space available for my new fabric scrap storage unit!

Here is my "After" picture.  WOWSERS!  Even I am impressed!  :-)  :-)

I have fabric boxes for red/pink, yellow/orange, blue, green, purple, tan/brown/ecru, black/gray/white. 

That left 2 spaces leftover, so I put the green & red donation fabric in one space ... just so I wouldn't forget about them.  I do have an immediate project planned for them and wanted them to be staring me in the face as a "nag".

The one remaining space is still emtpy.  I have a fabric cubby for it but haven't opened it up yet, as I'm not entirely certain that I want to keep it.  Nor have I decided what I want to put into that space.

But, having empty space is really quite wonderful at this point. :-)

I briefly considered just stacking the two boxes of donation fabric on top of the shelving unit, precisely so they would remain in the sewing room, but as you know, fabric is HEAVY.  This self-assembled, knock-down unit is not a piece of fine furniture (cough, cough) and while it is perfectly suitable for the purpose that I need it, I'm NOT entirely certain that it would hold up the two *heavy* boxes of fabric. 

I'd really rather not stack the boxes on top of the shelving unit, only to find at some future time, the entire unit collapsed on the floor under the weight of the fabric.  That may not ever happen, but I'm too chicken to try it. :-)

The 3-drawer tower that formerly held my scraps is going to be recycled in the room where my longarm machine lives.  *That* room is not organized efficiently at all, but may never be, as it is also the family room, which houses a sofa bed for overnight guests, when we have them.  But, having extra storage capability is always a good thing and I'll figure out what to do with the tower.  :-)

Dress Me Up! ... sashing completed

I'm continuing to steadily work on the sashing of Dress Me Up! and I'm so pleased to say that all the sashing to join the 12 embroidered blocks has been completed!  Woo hoo!

I had *just enough* of the dark purple to eke out the narrow border around the perimeter of the blocks .. which is what I did want to do.  I had exactly 2.5" selvage inches of the dark purple fabric left!  That's really cutting it closely!

The next phase is to work on the outer border.  This border will be very wide so that the quilt will end up being a useful bed size quilt.  I do have a design sketched out in Electric Quilt, but I'm not terribly in love with it.  It'll certainly work and Dear Daughter #2 likes it, so that's a big plus.

If I decide to go in a different direction, that would mean another round or two or three of "Do you like this?  or this? or this?" with Dear Daughter.  The last give-and-take about borders was ... painful.

So, maybe I'll take the lazy way out and use what has already been designed.  :-)

Here is the progress, so far. This is just the "interior" of the quilt .. it still needs a very wide outer border(s).

Dress Me Up! ... my current UFO

Now that I've finished my previous long term UFO, it's time to get started on the NEXT one.  Yeah, the *next* one.  I have a whole list of UFOs to work on (I'm sad to say) and this one popped to the top of the list.

The pattern is "Dress Me Up" from the Bobby Socks Quilt Company.  I chose to do the hand-embroidered version in shades of purple for my very favorite middle daughter.  The first embroidered block was started in August 2010 and the last one was finished in April 2011.   The 12 blocks were set aside for lack of inspiration in setting them.

The pattern called for a grid layout, which is one of the most boring layouts ever .. IMNSHO.  To be sure, there are times when a tic-tac-toe arrangement is perfectly acceptable but it is not what I wanted for this quilt.  Just exactly what I *did* want remained elusive.

Until I discovered a pattern titled "Spanish Tiles".  Oh!  I *loved* the sashing.  Luckily Dear Daughter liked it also.

Let's fast forward to now (2016).  I resurrected the embroidered blocks, figured out I could probably just eke out the sashing in a fabulous dark purple fabric I had, so I began.  I'm crossing my fingers on the amount of dark purple fabric.  To hedge my bets, I'm going to do all the strictly interior sashing with this fabric and if I run short, will do the outer border in a compatible dark purple.

So, here's the start of this next adventure.  The top pieced border hasn't been made yet, as it needs the partial "X" blocks, as are present on the sides.  It's easier to make the full "X" blocks right now so that I can be consistent (and remember how to do it!) than to switch gears.  When it comes time to do the top, bottom and other side borders, then I'll do all the partial "X" blocks.

Due to the precise amount of strip set needed to frame the embroidered blocks *between* the "X" blocks, this sashing is turning out to be a *major* PITA.

AND DANG IT!!  Now that I've seen the picture (looking at it from afar), I see the far left horizontal strip set segment is wrong .. the dark purple shouldn't extend all the way to the edge.   Well, drats.  It must come down and be corrected.  How utterly annoying.

Lone Star with hand-dyes ... done! Woo hoo!

The last post I made about this long-term UFO was in October 2015 and I am overjoyed to say that I am finally FINISHED with this project!  It has turned out to be so spectacular, so magnificent .. well, at least to me it is .. that I can hardly believe it.

My "way back" machine tells me that I started this journey started in June 2011 when I purchased a packet of a 10-step hand dyed fabric, ranging from pale yellow through deep gold to deep turquoise.  The colors were beyond description; they were stunning.  I knew that I would make a Lone Star with them.  You can read about the start in this blog entry.    In my haste to work on it (BIG MISTAKE TO HURRY!), I used an inappropriate fabric for the New York Beauty blocks.  I thought I could fix it after the fact (another HUGE MISTAKE!  Do it right the FIRST time), I realized that there was no good fix for my stupidity and the New York Beauty blocks would need to be redone.  You can read about *that* faux pas in this blog entry.

I was so discouraged that I bundled up the Lone Star and the screwed up New York Beauty blocks and put them away.  I just didn't want deal with them.  But .. I knew they were there.

Let's fast forward to August 2015.  I was on binge ... of finishing old UFOs.  I certainly remembered the Lone Star and dug it out.  And dealt with the stupidity of 2011.  And conquered it!  Go me!  :-)

From then until now, I have slowly but steadily continued to work on the appliques around the edges of the quilt.  There is certainly a time and place for machine stitched appliques, but this quilt was not it.  It took me a very long time to hand stitch all the applique flowers down.

Then, it came time for quilting.  Sometimes, quilting can be the bane of my existence.  There are times when I have flashes of brilliance and know exactly what I'm going to do.  But most of the time, I employ the "sit and stare" method of inspiration. This quilt used both techniques. :-)

I knew the star itself would get continuous curves.  I really enjoy doing ruler work on my longarm.  I like the precision of it.  I like how the decisions are taken out of my hands because the geometry of the design tells you want it is going to be.

I also knew that there would be a messload of stitch in the ditch.  All of the appliques.  All of the New York Beauty blocks.  Around the tiaras.  Yeah, that's a lot, but not only did I needed to stabilize those areas with the stitching but the stitch in the ditch would emphasize them also.  Lordy, it took a long time to do all that stitch in the ditch!

As I work on areas where I know what I'm doing, I also let my mind wander and ponder what to do in the other areas.  It was during one of these times that it occurred to me that Gothic Arches around the spikes of the New York Beauty blocks would be exactly perfect.  Not only that but I found the *precisely perfect* variegated thread from Superior!  So, that decision was made.

The turquoise tiaras would get feathers of some sort because I like doing feathers.  When I finally found a method of stitching feathers that made sense to me and I was able to master, I will put feathers anywhere. :-)    But there are all SORTS of feather designs.  I looked up tons and tons of feathers, both in my own reference books but on the internet as well.

That left the background fabric around the appliqued vines and flowers.   Oh yuck yuck yuck.  I hadn't a CLUE what to do.  The background absolutely needed to be held down but I really .. I mean REALLY dislike meandering and stippling. Then, it hit me!  I don't need to do meandering/stippling around ALL of the appliques!  I could do beadboard from the raw edge of the quilt up to the vines!  And I like doing beadboard.

That left only the background between the appliques and the tiaras.  Once again, looking through my reference materials, I found a scrolly meander that would work.  It would be a meander of sorts but with enough curly q's to make it interesting.

And that's what I did.  When the quilting was finished, I hung the quilt up on my design wall and just admired it.  I'll be honest here .. I love this quilt.  I LOVE THIS QUILT.  Sure, it's not perfect; there are lots of bobbles in a lot of areas ... but now that it's washed, from the distance of 5 miles during a stiff breeze from the back of a galloping horse, it looks absolutely perfect.  And that's how I view it. :-)  (Aside: this attitude is exactly why I don't do "show quilts".  While I don't do sloppy work, I also just don't have the patience to do the kind of OCD, anally-retentive workmanship that show quilts require.)

Finally, it came time for the binding.  The background fabric has straight edges.  That's just standard when you're busy making the quilt.  I hadn't really given any thought of what to do with the edges.  As I as gazing with deep affection on this quilt, it came to me that *scallops* would be the PERFECT finished edge.

ONLY .. oh dear ... I hadn't exactly planned for scallops.  There really wasn't enough excess fabric for scallops.  Or was there?  Hmmm ... maybe .. perhaps ... what if???   What if the scallops were very, very, very gentle?  They would need to be because the appliqued vine comes VERY CLOSE to the edge of the fabric in a couple of places.  But ya know??  I think it could work!

Working very carefully and determinedly, I marked the scallops, applied the bias binding and hand sewed the binding to the back.  Yes, they *were* very gentle scallops but they were exactly what this quilt needed to finish it properly.

The only item I have left to do is the label.  But I am SO SO SO ecstatic that this long-term UFO is finally done!  And I'm SO SO SO exceptionally proud of the result.  I just look at this quilt and smile.  A great big smile.  :-)

M is for Monster ... top only

Generally speaking, I don't buy kits.  Lord knows that I have more than enough fabric in my stash that I will ever possibly use in my lifetime.  When making quilts, I try very hard to use what I already have.  I also try very hard to juggle what fabrics I do have to make them work, even if that results in a quilt not quite like the inspiration piece.  :-)

Occasionally ... I will see a kit that is just SO darling .. or the fabrics used are SO unique .. that I will make an exception and buy the kit.

This was the case with "M is for Monster".  This was a kit from The Piper's Girls.  The hook for me was that the monsters were done in bamboo felt of the most luscious colors!  I knew that I wouldn't be able to find bamboo felt locally, so why not support the designer?  :-)

This is *such* an easy quilt to construct ... 7 wide strips of 8" fabric; each strip has one monster.  While I chose to do needleturn applique for the fabric portion of the monsters, that method is NOT mandatory.  In fact, the designers specifically say that whatever method you like is the one you should use.   Their version was done with fusible webbing.

When I had finished the top, I pinned it to my design board to admire it.  I grinned at those silly little monsters.  BUT ... it just seemed so PLAIN.  There were no borders .. just the 7 strips of fabric. 

I wanted to jazz it up ... just a little.  It occurred to me that if I put Flying Geese on the ends of the strips, it could look like the strips were arrows.  I liked that idea.  Now, it looks like I have black arrows going in one direction and white arrows going in the opposite direction.

I really like this cute little quilt.  It'll finish around 52"x56".

fund-raiser quilts ... well, they're still tops at this point :-)

My favorite oldest daughter's mother-in-law helps to run the Santa Cruz Toddler Care Center in Santa Cruz, CA.  Every year, they have a fund raiser and I volunteered to make a quilt (or two :-)  ) for them.

Eventhough I am "thisclose" to finishing a long-term UFO, I just could NOT resist starting a new top, especially when I knew the piecing wasn't going to take very long.  Tina Craig, of Seaside Stitchers, posted a picture of a scrappy pyramid/triangle quilt that I knew (well .. to be honest .. I only had high hopes) would use up a fair amount of strips in my scrap drawers.  She didn't post a pattern, but any experienced quilter can see it is clearly a "triangle in a square" block.  Instead of using one fabric for the triangle, you "create" your own fabric by sewing strips together, then cut the triangle from the strip set.

This is my version.  And no, it didn't seem to make an appreciable dent in my scrap drawers.  They are still as full as ever. 

This top is about 45"x69".  It was easy enough to make and I just kept making more blocks!
















Concerned that the scrappy pyramid quilt might actually be too big for their purposes, I asked what size they'd prefer (something I probably should have done before but .. eh .. I was having fun.)   I was told a crib size quilt would be great, so I dug through my scraps again and rediscovered a whole STACK of 4-patch I-Spy blocks that had been unable to be used in a previous project. 

So, I simply sewed ALL the 4-patches together, put a plain border around them and then a beautiful mitered border around that.  I love a mitered border. :-)


Both of these are still tops-only, so the next step will be to load them on my longarm to get them quilted, bound and mailed off.

Although I am eagerly anticipating the finish of my long-term UFO, I was very, very pleased and happy to have taken the break to piece these two tops.  The quilting won't take long at all.  (She said confidently in anticipation of no problems with the longarm machine!)

Catching up with projects: hand embroidered dish towels

I used to have a protocol.

I'd work on a project.  I might or might not have taken in-progress pictures and blogged about them.   If I did take in-progress pictures, I definitely wrote about them on "my" online quilt Delphi forum, Online Quilting Guild.  When the project was finished, pictures would be taken and then posted on Delphi, my blog and Facebook.  At that point, I could consider the project 100% finished and move on to the next project. (There is ALWAYS a 'next' project.)

Well, protocols are good only if you follow them.  I've become increasingly lazy and quite the lamer.  While the Delphi forum does get more or less regular updates, my blog has not; neither has Facebook.  Those of you who maintain a blog know that it takes a considerable amount of time to get an entry ready to post.  That's time I had decided that I would rather be spending on sewing.  :-)   Time marches on and my one remaining brain cell becomes tired and then I discover that I can't remember if I've ever talked about some of the projects that I've finished!

So, that is what I'm going to be doing now .. a series of posts to bring my blog kinda/sorta, more-or-less up to date with where I am in my creative endeavors.

First up is a series of dishtowels I hand-embroidered.  I really do enjoy hand embroidery.  Sometime during the summer of 2015, I bought a set of blank, plaid dishtowels at a quilt show and some poultry themed and some coffee themed designs.  I also bought an incredible (new to me) product called "Sticky Fabri-Solvy".  Solvy makes water-soluble stabilizers.  This stuff is mounted (temporarily) on a stiff piece of paper and can run through your printer.  Once a design is printed on the Solvy, you peel it off the paper much like a Post-It note and stick it onto your embroidery fabric.  You embroider right through the Solvy because, since it's water soluble, once you launder it, it dissolves, leaving only the embroidery behind.

What a FANTASTIC product!  It completely eliminates the tedious part of hand-drawing and transferring the embroidery design onto the foundation fabric!  No more pencil lines that you worry about covering!  The stuff is awesome.

I printed the poultry and coffee designs onto the Solvy, adhered it to the dish towels and happily embroidered the designs.  I made a set for my favorite middle daughter, my favorite niece on my side of the family and a singleton for my favorite youngest daughter.    Yeah, yeah .. cry me a river, Dear Youngest Daughter.  I guess it just wasn't your day to be loved with a set.  :-)

This set was done for my middle daughter.  I took one of them with me on our September trip to Mexico and actually got it finished, which is documented in the little labels I stitched for the towels.




 
The next set was stitched for one of my nieces, who can't seem to function without her morning caffeine.













The last singleton dish towel is for my youngest daughter.  She has a preference for the color red and I found a solid red blank dish towel for her.